Actinidia eriantha is an endemic kiwifruit species in China with high nutritional value and breeding potential. As a typical dioecious fruit tree, most currently bred cultivars are female, while the development of male pollinizer cultivars remains insufficiently studied and reported. Through long-term collection and evaluation of wild germplasm resources, our research team bred a male cultivar ‘Ganxiong 1’ with both ornamental and pollination value. In this study, the phenological traits, floral characteristics, major biological traits, ploidy levels, and genetic diversity of ‘Ganxiong 1’ were systematically analyzed and compared with those of the commonly used pollinizer ‘Moshan 4’. The results showed that ‘Ganxiong 1’ exhibited stable genetic traits, with branch bleeding occurring in late February and flowering in early May, highly overlapping with the flowering period of most female A. eriantha cultivars. It produced bright red flowers arranged in false dichasial cymes, showing high ornamental value. The average number of anthers per flower was 140.24, and the number of pollen grains per anther reached 8.57 × 10⁴, with a pollen viability of 97.64% and a pollen tube length of 127.25 μm, indicating strong pollination potential. Ploidy and SSR analyses revealed that ‘Ganxiong 1’ is a diploid cultivar and is genetically distinct from previously reported A. eriantha cultivars at the DNA level. Regarding pollination effects, the fruit set rate, single fruit weight, seed number, SSC, and AsA content of ‘Ganlv 1’ fruits pollinated with ‘Ganxiong 1’ were significantly higher than those pollinated with ‘Moshan 4’, while the TA content was significantly lower than that of ‘Moshan 4’ pollination. In conclusion, ‘Ganxiong 1’ exhibits high stability and distinctiveness in phenological, morphological, cytological, and genetic characteristics. It can be considered a new ornamental and pollination dual-purpose cultivar of A. eriantha and provides an important parental resource for kiwifruit breeding programs.

Colchicine and ⁶⁰Co-γ radiation are commonly used breeding techniques for kiwifruit, offering advantages such as low cost, rapid execution, and high efficiency. The buds of red-fleshed kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis) cv. ‘Donghong’ were used as experimental material and subjected to different concentrations of colchicine and different doses of ⁶⁰Co-γ radiation, respectively. Then, the buds were grafted on rootstock, and the ploidy, leaf size, and fruit quality of mutant fruit were evaluated, and principal component analysis (PCA) and simple sequence repeat markers were used to comprehensively assess and detect genetic variations, respectively. The results indicated that a total of 19 buds successfully germinated, with 13 branches successfully bearing fruit. Significant changes were observed in both leaf and fruit morphology following the mutation treatments. Most of the mutant materials showed significant increases in fruit weight, flesh firmness, and soluble sugar content, while titratable acidity and ascorbic acid content significantly decreased. Notably, the 25Gy ⁶⁰Co-γ radiation (25d) treatment demonstrated outstanding results, with fruit weight increasing by 256.10%, soluble sugar content rising by 88.29%, titratable acidity decreasing by 29.86%, and ascorbic acid content increasing by 35.60%. PCA results showed that the 25d mutant had the best comprehensive traits. And, except for the 0.4c mutant, all other mutant materials exhibited significant genetic changes at the DNA level.